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Molly,
On most MUDs that are oriented around bashing monsters (and that's most MUDs), skills has almost nothing to do with success. Time does. If you have no life outside the MUD and spend all your time going out and killing monsters, you 'win'. That's not skill, that's just rewarding teenagers and college students who have lots of time on their hands. I certainly remember skipping plenty of classes in college to get that next level. Skill had nothing to do with getting that level though. Persistence did.
In most MUDs (keeping in mind that most MUDs are nothing but barely altered downloads of a codebase), combat seems to proceed along the lines of, "Kill <so-and-so>." That's it. That's certainly not skill.
Achaea is FAR more skill-based than most MUDs I've played. You cannot buy your way to success in politics, and you can only buy tools to help you incrementally in combat. It's like golf: If you have no skill at golfing, buying great golf clubs isn't going to make you a great golfer. Finally of course, you can't buy the ability to roleplay, and you certainly can't purchase the respect of your fellow players, in Achaea, or in any game. (Actually, people tend to look down on those who buy a lot of stuff from us and then still can't fight properly, for instance. Tends to make you look kind of foolish.)
--matt
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